Medical Missions

My church takes a team to Ensenada, Mexico thrice yearly and the Labor Day Weekend trip is their medical team trip. Clarice used to go every year with the dental team, but then she met me and we had a little one. This year, I wanted to serve the poor in Ensenada and I especially wanted to serve on the dental team so that I could observe my wife in her natural habitat and understand better what she does so passionately.

Man, was I not ready.

First of all, I'm not a clean freak. Or maybe I am. As a special effects technician on movies, I got used to working with dirt and eating with not-so-cleaned hands (sometimes it was hypo-allergenic dirt). I could never work food service because I can't stand the need to always have clean hands for working with food. Besides my hands dry out when I wash them too much. However, one of the requirements of any medical team is sterile instruments and sterilization was the only way this medically ignorant volunteer could be of valued assistance. And I know these poor people need clean instruments because they are about to have their teeth pulled.

It's one thing in the movies to create squirting, bloody wounds with tubes and syringes or have red corn syrup and luncheon meat blasted out of your chest for a simulated gunshot wound. It's another thing altogether to witness a room full of wincing or uncomfortable people, trying to relax in lawnchairs as foreigners scrape plaque or fill cavities. I didn't get an upset stomach, but I was a bit uneasy at first.

So, fortunately for me, by lunchtime I had relaxed. I was able to take the instruments through the disinfectant rinses, dry and package them in sterile envelopes and pressure steam (autoclave) them for ten minutes. I could appreciate the smiles on faces of people who had been relieved of their tooth ache, a pain they had dealt with for up to a year and one that has now been replaced with a "good, temporary pain" as the novocaine wears off. I mourned for the children whose moms approved having their children's teeth pulled because they couldn't afford proper care. I was glad that certain poor farmers' children were given floss for the first time ever. A happy smile is a healthy smile.

I know one thing for sure, I'm going to double my efforts to floss my teeth properly.